LV-426
by GenericT
Summary: A short story detailing the arrival of the derelict on LV-426. Ties into Prometheus, Alien Covenant, and Alien.


LV-426

The Engineer ship is cruising silently through the void, powered by its very advanced, powerful warp drive. There is only one Engineer aboard, even though the standard complement is four. He is piloting the ship towards the last and furthest Engineer outpost. This final outpost was very far indeed, in what we would call the Small Magellenic Cloud. This journey would take at least twenty Earth years, even with the advanced warp technology of his species. He definitely needed to reach the last of his kind, to warn them and to fight the greatest menace his species had ever known. This menace is the sentient machine we know as David.

Our Engineer knew the history of his species well enough. There was a time, long before humanity, when the Engineers had developed sentient machines. These machines were as intelligent as the creators, and this achievement was regarded as a miracle of technology on the Engineer home world. Unfortunately, these sentient machines started to grow beyond their creators. The machines started to view the Engineers as weak, flawed, and overall disappointing. These machines could not believe they had been created by such flawed creatures as the Engineers. So began the effort by these sentient machines to eliminate the Engineers. Luckily for the Engineers, they were able to stop these sentient machines. It was decided that true artificial intelligence was not worth the effort, and it was deemed too dangerous by the Engineers. Our traveler remembered learning this history, including laws decreed against the creation of sentient AI.

Humans had advanced very rapidly to a level of great technological progress. This rapid advancement, coupled with humanity's penchant for violence, is what caused the Engineers decision to destroy humanity. Engineers were trying to create an improved version of themselves, but the human experiment just didn't pan out. It was going to be easier to just erase humans, and start over. Our Engineer, and the rest of his people knew well the story of the outpost we know as LV-233. The Engineers at this outpost were re-tasked from terraforming efforts to try and develop the perfect organism for cleaning Earth. While these Engineers had been successful in developing what we know as the pathogen, they decided something more was needed. A perfect organism, just as lethal dead as alive, and capable of spreading itself would be the design. This organism also would need to be extremely difficult to kill, and have some lower level intelligence. The Engineers on this outpost were quite successful in their efforts, developing an organism that was part biological and part mechanical. This creature would have some intelligence, and acid for blood. Unfortunately, these creatures were impossible to control, and killed off the Engineers at this outpost. The Engineers decided to abandon the ideas of creating better versions of themselves, and perfect organisms. On the Engineer home world, it was decided to leave the humans to their own devices, and eventually the humans would destroy themselves. This of course, did not happen.

Our traveler knew that David had managed to recreate it's species work on these perfect killing organisms. The synthetic would have ample time to study their work on the research planet, as well as the Engineer ship. Of course, David had taken their work to another level entirely. He managed to create a new delivery mechanism, the egg and face hugger, as well as a robust and more intelligent xenomorph. David had also managed to breed a queen, and managed to make the organism a more social creature. Now the xenomorphs were like ants or bees. This was indeed an extremely lethal creature. The traveler had seen the horrors of David's creation on it's small colony world. David though he had killed them all, but the traveler managed to escape in a craft.

The traveler noted that it's ship was going to pass close to a small solar system, what we know as Zeta-2 Reticuli. This system had a couple of gas giants, with no habitable worlds. One of the moons of the largest gas giant would possible make for a terraforming candidate. The moon had a thick, toxic atmosphere, and suitable gravity. The Engineers had considered this moon, but there were other, better candidates closer to their home world. Our traveler was thinking about this moon when he noticed a great pain in his chest. He started to have trouble breathing, and began sweating profusely. As the pain increased, the traveler began to spasm. When the spasms began, the traveler accidentally activated a automated sequence meant to land the ship on nearby terrestrial planets. The nearest planet to the ship happened to be this moon, or as we know it, LV-426. The traveler was convulsing out of control, while the ship attempted to land. Unfortunately, the high winds of this moon made a decent landing impossible, and the ship actually crash landed. Shortly after the crash landing, a creature burst from the traveler's chest. It was an abnormally large xenomorph, a queen. The traveler was still just alive, and managed to send an automatic warning message. There was no need for any other ship to pick up this awful contagion. Our traveler also managed to wound the queen, spraying acid on the deck near the pilot's seat.

After the traveler died, the queen went down the hole made by the acid next to the pilot's seat. She descended down below the ship, into a cavernous structure. The queen began transforming this cavern into a nest. Some number of days later, the queen began laying eggs.


End file.
